1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for optically reading a document to convert the document to electronic data and presenting the electronic data as a file.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some electronic file formats allow electronic files in these formats to hold other files in various types of formats therein in the form of attachment of such files to the electronic files. Also, some electronic file formats allow other files to be retrieved from inside the electronic files in these formats in the same state as that at the time of attachment. Examples of such electronic file formats include ISO-defined portable document files (PDF), Microsoft OFFICE application files (docx, ppptx), etc. The above attaching operation is executable on an application supporting the relevant file in a personal computer (PC). When a given file is attached to another file, the plurality of files can be put together and handled as one file in the file handling. Also, a function effective only for the file to which the given file is attached can be made effective for the attached file. For example, the encrypting function of PDF can be made effective for the attached file.
Recently, generation of files is increasingly being performed with frequency, not only on applications in PCs, but also in image processing apparatuses such as a multifunction machine where a document is optically read to generate an electronic file. For a file generated in such an image processing apparatus, also, there occurs a use case that requires clarification of the relevance of the file to another file in some way or another. In this situation, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-306294, for example, describes a method where a file generated in an image processing apparatus is attached to an e-mail using the file attachment function of the e-mail and the relevance of the file attached to the e-mail to another file is described in the text of the e-mail.
The image processing apparatus described above is not provided with the function of attaching an electronic file generated by the image processing apparatus by optically reading a document to an existing file, or the function of attaching an existing file to an electronic file generated by the image processing apparatus by optically reading a document. It is however conceivable to attach an electronic file generated by the image processing apparatus by optically reading a document to an existing file, or to attach an existing file to an electronic file generated by the image processing apparatus by optically reading a document. In such a case, a PC and a supporting application operable in the PC will be necessary, in addition to the image processing apparatus. Moreover, complicated operations as follows will be necessary.
(1) The image processing apparatus reads a document to generate an electronic file.
(2) The image processing apparatus specifies an appropriate PC as the destination.
(3) The image processing apparatus sends the generated electronic file to the PC.
(4) The PC receives the electronic file.
(5) The PC opens the received electronic file on an appropriate application and attaches an existing file to be attached to the electronic file, or opens an existing file on an appropriate application and attaches the received electronic file to the existing file.
(6) The PC sends the electronic file prepared in (5) to the originally-intended destination.
Moreover, the image processing apparatus may have a list of sending destinations including sending methods and destinations previously registered and retained, and the list of sending destinations and the image processing apparatus may have an electronic signature function with the image processing apparatus itself serving as an issuer. In such a case, the user is prevented from enjoying this merit.